The Federal Government has announced plans to phase out the policy separating Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) from Senior Secondary Schools (SSS), following concerns about rising school dropout rates.
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja during the inauguration of the Universal Basic Education Commission Ministerial Implementation and Monitoring Committee.
Alausa said the disarticulation policy, which requires Junior Secondary Schools and Senior Secondary Schools to operate separately with different principals and facilities, has failed to achieve its objectives.
“We have 20 million dropouts from primary school to JSS. Where are those students? We also found we have 80,000 public primary schools and only about 15,000 junior secondary schools. That’s a one-to-eight ratio,” he said.
He explained that the imbalance has resulted in overcrowded junior secondary schools while many senior secondary schools remained underutilised.
“This disarticulation policy has failed. We will phase it out. We can’t be creating positions because we want to create a director-level position for people while we harm our education system. It’s about doing what is best for every Nigerian child,” the minister added.
Alausa said the proposal to abolish the policy would be presented at the next meeting of the National Council on Education.
He noted that the reform was aimed at improving access to education and boosting learning outcomes.
“We are fixing it,” he said.
The minister also inaugurated a committee chaired by Prof. Rashid Aderinoye to oversee Universal Basic Education Commission-funded Smart Schools, Bilingual Schools and Alternative Schools.
According to him, the committee will ensure the projects are completed, handed over to state governments and opened for learning.
He lamented that despite huge investments by UBEC, many of the schools remained uncompleted or had yet to admit learners, describing the situation as a waste of public resources.
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